31.2363, Review: Morphology; Syntax: Kayne (2018)

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Subject: 31.2363, Review: Morphology; Syntax: Kayne (2018)

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Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2020 18:46:19
From: Ferid Chekili [feridchekililg at yahoo.fr]
Subject: Questions of Syntax

 
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-285.html

AUTHOR: Richard S. Kayne
TITLE: Questions of Syntax
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2018

REVIEWER: Ferid Chekili, The MBMA Academy for Diplomatic Studies

SUMMARY

The book (Questions of Syntax by Richard S. Kayne) is a collection of sixteen
Chapters, either previously published, or to appear. 

The book contains three parts (labelled, sections A, B and C) preceded by a
preface written by the author in which he briefly provides a summary of the
contents of the book. Section A includes four chapters, section B, eight
chapters, and section C, four chapters. A bibliography and an index complete
the volume. 

DESCRIPTION

SECTION A: Comparative Syntax

Chapter 1 (‘More languages than we might have thought. Fewer languages than
there might have been’) is an excursion into the familiar question of how many
languages – actual and possible- there are, and whether we can use the common
and different syntactic, semantic and phonological properties of languages to
arrive at a possible answer to the question. The author’s conclusion is that,
although the number seems astronomical, this is not a problem as
“syntacticians do not need (…) to study [all the languages] individually. They
do, on the other hand, need to reach an understanding (…) of what the set of
parameters is, of what the set of possible syntactic differences looks like…”
(p.10). 

In Chapter 2 (‘Comparative syntax’), starting with a discussion of the notions
of observational, descriptive and explanatory adequacy, Kayne shows how the
same notions can be used in comparative syntax, and points to the relative
ease/difficulty of achieving these criteria in comparative syntax. He also
argues that the “primary importance of comparative syntax lies in the fact
that it provides us with new kinds of evidence bearing on questions concerning
the general character of the language faculty” (p.21). The rest of the chapter
deals with detailed examples of (micro)-comparative syntax which is argued to
“provide support for a more general property of the language faculty” (p.26),
such as the observation that the language faculty allows for the existence of
silent elements.  

Chapter 3 (‘Comparative syntax and English ‘‘is to’’’) deals with the
comparative syntax of English ‘is to’ and its absence in Germanic and Romance,
with the aim to bring further evidence to the claim that the language faculty
is so constructed as to allow for the existence of silent elements that are
syntactically and semantically active. Explanation of the behavior of ‘is to’
in comparative syntax--i.e. the fact it only exists in English-- is linked to
the possibility of an overt or silent FOR, itself only found in English. An
analysis of English ‘is to’ is next presented which makes use of the
distinction of raising vs. control, silent FOR and a silent matrix predicate
argued to be a passive participle of a W-verb such as ‘expect’ and ‘suppose’,
which is at the origin of the deontic interpretation of sentences like ‘You
are to return home before midnight’. 

In Chapter 4 (‘Having “need” and needing “have”’ (with Stephanie Harves)), the
authors aim to show how the existence of constructions with transitive ‘need’
in the world’s languages, is dependent on the existence of a transitive verb
of possession corresponding to English ‘have’. Data from a number of different
languages are presented illustrating the generalization made in ((1), p.80)
according to which a language cannot have a transitive verb ‘need’ without
having ‘have’. This is accounted for using an incorporation approach to
transitive verbal ‘need ” (p.86). 

SECTION B: Silent elements

In Chapter 5 (‘The silence of heads’), the author investigates the possibility
that projecting heads are always silent elements. He argues that English
‘that’ and Romance ‘che/que’ as well as non-finite clause complementizers, are
‘’determiner-based relative pronouns [rather than complementizers] even when
introducing sentential complements’’ (p.97). Consequently, he argues that
“there are no visible CP-area complementizer heads” (p.97). He then
demonstrates that modal VPs are not headed by ‘need’ but by a silent light
verb. The same sort of reasoning is used in the rest of the chapter, yielding
the conclusion that “many more heads in the sentential projection line (and
elsewhere) are silent than is usually thought” (p.126). 

Chapter 6 (‘A note on some even more unusual relative clauses’) describes some
unusual cases of relative clauses containing more than one wh-word such as:
“(6) (?) Mary Smith, whose husband’s love for whom knows no bounds, is a
famous linguist” where the two wh-words are related to the head of the
relative, or “ (10) That car over there belongs to my old friend John Smith,
whose long-standing attachment to which is well known to all his friends”,
where only one relative pronoun is related to the head of the relative. This,
he argues, demonstrates that “the familiar relation between the head of a
relative and the relative pronoun […is] a special (…) case of a more general
relation between a relative pronoun (a stranded determiner) and its antecedent
(whose movement has stranded that determiner)” (p.133).

In Chapter 7 (‘The unicity of there and the definiteness effect’), the author
argues that all instances of ‘there’(i.e. expletive, locative and others) are
the same element, and it is this sameness or anti-homophony approach to
‘there’ that can explain the definiteness effect in existential sentences. He
shows, for instance, that locative ‘there’ and the ‘there’ in ‘therefore’ are
both the same deictic ‘there’ which co-occurs with silent elements. Regarding
expletive ‘there’, it is argued that it originates DP-internally within the
associate as a case of deictic ‘there’. The definiteness effect in sentences
with expletive ‘there’ comes about as a result of  “the fact that certain
determiners interfere with the derivation (…) that in effect takes deictic
‘there’ and makes it look like what we call expletive ‘there’” (p.148).

Chapter 8 (‘Notes on French and English demonstratives’ (with Jean-Yves
Pollock)) investigates demonstratives in English and French. A generalization
requiring the presence of an “overt (reduced) relative clause” when a definite
article “accompanies a light element such as ‘ones’ or THING” (p.169), allows
Kayne to account for the acceptability of sentences containing demonstratives
(e.g. 17,12,8) and the unacceptability of others (e.g. 16). He demonstrates
the difference in acceptability between “(41) This is my friend Bill” (where
‘this’ originates within a DP containing ‘my friend Bill’) and “(44) That
friend of mine often discusses syntax with this *(one)” (where ‘this’ cannot
be linked to ‘that friend of mine’) by the fact that in specificational
sentences such as (41), the two phrases surrounding the copula originate as
one phrase, whereas in sentences such as (44), “the two relevant phrases
correspond to distinct arguments and do not originate as one complex NP”
(p.176).

In Chapter 9 (‘Some thoughts on one and two and other numerals’), Kayne
demonstrates the non-homogeneous nature of numerals which are argued to
consist of three categories, namely, ‘one’, ‘two, three, four’, and ‘five’and
up. Following an idea in Cheng and Sybesma (1999), he suggests that an English
DP containing ‘one’ must contain a singular classifier. He further argues that
numeral ‘one’ is the same element as non-numeral ‘one’, and both constitute a
complex determiner, not a syntactic primitive. In addition, numeral ‘one’ is
accompanied by silent or overt ‘single’ or ‘only’. Based on the behavior of
‘both’, phrases with ‘two’ are argued to be instances of coordination with
silent elements. Coordinate structures are, also, argued to be involved with
the numerals ‘two’, ‘three’ and ‘four’. With numerals ‘five’ and up, Kayne
posits the presence of a silent SET. He concludes that phrases of the form
numeral + noun do not involve direct merger of the two elements; rather, the
derivations involve additional factors such as the presence of a classifier
together with pronounced and unpronounced material. 

In Chapter 10 (‘English one and ones as complex determiners’), following
Perlmutter (1970), Kayne argues that all instances of ‘one’ (traditionally
analysed as a determiner), are the same element, including less obvious cases
such as the ‘ones’ in his “(10) I have red cars and you have blue ones” which
looks like a noun. Similarly, he argues for a relationship between ‘a/an’ and
‘one’, the former being a reduced form of the latter. To do so, and account
for the superficial differences between constructions containing the two
elements, he proposes “(33) An English DP with ‘one’ contains a singular
classifier”. In other words, ‘one’ is a complex determiner consisting of a
classifier and an indefinite article. Using data from Spanish ‘unos’ and
French ‘uns’ and ‘quels’ as well as other data, he argues that ‘ones’ is also
a determiner. 

Chapter 11 (‘Once and twice’), continues the exploration of the language
faculty through the investigation of ‘once’ and ‘twice’. ‘Once’ is analyzed as
“one TIME-ce”, with –ce argued to be a postposition and hence ‘once’ is a
preposional phrase (PP). He analyses ‘twice’ in a parallel fashion with ‘time’
also analyzed as singular. The singular nature of silent TIME is due to its
being antecedentless and to the presence of a preceding numeral and more
importantly, for him, to the fact that TIME is a classifier which is
“universally not pluralizable” (p.250). He concludes that the study of silent
elements such as TIME with ‘once’ and ‘twice’, ”provides us with a privileged
window onto the invariant core of the language faculty itself” (p.257). 

In Chapter 12 (‘A note on grand and its silent entourage’), Kayne discusses
the American colloquial lexical item ‘grand’, and demonstrates its adjectival
nature despite appearances to the contrary. To do so, he argues that sentences
such as his “(23) It’ll cost you a grand just to get into the game” can be
analyzed as “(26) It’ll cost you a grand TOTAL THOUSAND BUCKS (…)”, with three
silent elements. He further argues that “It’ll cost you ten grand (…)” can
best be analyzed as “It’ll cost you ten THOUSAND BUCKS IN grand TOTAL”. This
analysis is shown to have “implications for the licensing of silent elements,
for constraints against synonyms, for left-branch constraints and for the
movement of silent elements” (p.ix). 

SECTION C: Ordering and doubling

In Chapter 13 (‘Why are there no directionality parameters?’), Kayne begins by
providing evidence for his claim that there are no symmetries in syntax and
consequently, no directionality parameters. Evidence comes from the
non-existence of mirror-image languages and from other predictions which
follow from the antisymmetry hypothesis. He then gives examples of
cross-linguistic asymmetries. These examples, he argues, point to the
antisymmetry nature of “our linguistic universe” (e.g. p.281). Kayne, also,
deals with the question of why the language faculty does not allow for
directionality parameters and is asymmetric. He first shows that the language
faculty only allows Head-Complement order. He further argues that the “initial
plausibility” of the directionality parameter is due to the fact that the
specifier was taken to merge, not with a head, but with a phrase and
demonstrates that “[T]he merger of two phrases is unavailable” (p.297), as a
head must always be involved. 

In Chapter 14 (‘Toward a syntactic reinterpretation of Harris and Halle
(2005)’), Kayne considers Harris and Halle’s (2005) morphological analysis of
non-standard Spanish constructions with pronominal clitics and the plural
morpheme ‘-n’, and argues that a syntactic approach to the phenomena in
question would be more appropriate. He demonstrates that many phenomena which
get no explanation or which are redundant (e.g. metathesis) within a
morphological approach get “a more straightforward account” (p.309) within a
syntactic perspective.

In Chapter 15 (‘Locality and agreement in French Hyper-complex inversion’
(with Jean-Yves Pollock)), the authors look into the derivation of the French
construction which Kayne labels “Hyper-complex Inversion” (HCI) (illustrated
in his “(8) Cela la gêne-t-elle? (that her bothers she- ‘does that bother
her’” in contrast to the more familiar complex inversion (CI) construction:
“(7) Cela la gêne-t-il? (that her bothers it- ‘does that bother her’”. The
authors propose to analyze the two types in terms of clitic doubling. They
then use the asymmetry found in French between third-person singular agreement
and third-person plural agreement, in order to deal with cases of number
agreement in HCI sentences which contain an (apparently) incompatible but
grammatically correct combination of a plural finite verb and a singular
lexical subject.

Chapter 16 (‘Clitic doubling, person and agreement in French Hyper-complex
inversion’), is a continuation of the previous Chapter. Here, too, Kayne
proposes to deal with CI and HCI as instances of clitic doubling similar to
that found in Spanish. He further claims that all cases of clitic doubling
(including HCI) involve person agreement, in that there is a clear restriction
against first- and second-person subject clitics (SCLs) in CI and HCI
sentences. The reason, he claims, is that “(75) CI and HCI are incompatible
with SCLs associated with phrasal demonstrative structure” (p.365). In other
words, contrary to third-person SCLs, SCLs associated with phrasal
demonstrative structure –i.e. first- and second-person SCLs – are too complex
to be able to occur in CI and HCI constructions. 

EVALUATION

 The Chapters in this collection are all of a very high standard, not
accessible to the general reader but would require some knowledge of
generative syntactic theory. 
The major contribution of this volume is in further clarifying the concept of
comparative syntax and how it, not only, ''attempts to deepen our
understanding of the 'parameters' side of the human language faculty''... but
also...''provides us with a new and highly promising tool with which to deepen
our understanding of the 'principles' side, the invariant core, of the human
language faculty'' (Cinque & Kayne, 2005, Preface).
 
Another strong point of the collection, is the way the various papers are
linked together. A common thread is the search for an understanding of the
‘general character of the language faculty’.

The Chapters abound in novel data, both from different varieties of English
and other languages, and offer new insights leading to novel analyses which
wouldn’t have been possible without a comparative syntax perspective and the
recourse to silent elements. The arguments, for instance, for or against a
particular claim are supported by observations of other languages, a procedure
which makes the analysis more explanatorily adequate. 

Finally, the analysis succeeds in achieving its stated objective, namely,
revealing the general character of the language faculty. 

Owing to the nature of the book, however, which is a collection of previously
published or to-appear articles not necessarily in chronological order, there
are inevitably many instances of repetition giving an overall impression of
deja-vu with the result  that the book does not read as a unified whole, but
as a collection of unrelated papers. For example, the illustration of
observational adequacy in Chapter 3 is a repetition of Chapter 2; most of the
content of Chapter 2 is repeated in Chapter 3; the explanation of some
examples such as (2) in Chapter 2, are repetitive of similar examples in
Chapter 1 (p.17); most of Chapter 16 is almost an exact copy of Chapter 15;
and most of section 6 (Chapter 9) is repeated in section 12.

Similarly, many claims lack proper explanation as this can be found in
previous papers. For example, no reasons are provided for the claim, made on
p.28, that “ ‘if’ and its counterparts in other languages are prohibited from
directly preceding the silent subject (PRO) of an infinitive (INF)”. 

There are, also, a number of speculations, conjecture and open questions which
is not necessarily a weakness as it reflects the still developing nature of
the field. For example, in connection with the rarity of counterparts of
English, in other languages, Kayne writes (p.29): “You are to return before
midnight” which is argued to “depend on the existence, in English, of
something else”. “…This something else is, I think…”: Independently of the
validity of the idea, it still remains a speculation. There are, also, a large
number of ideas on which depend important generalizations and correlations,
introduced, for instance, by “as far as I know…” (e.g. (p.29); “Thinking of
(52)-(60), it seems almost certain…” (p.57); “If Kayne (…) is correct…”
(p.129); “If (17) is correct…” (pp.137,138); “remains to be elucidated”
(p.190); “in a way that remains to be spelled out” (p.205); “…remains to be
understood” (footnote 13). Some statements are made too hastily.  For example,
in connection with the apparent exceptions to the definiteness effect such as
List contexts (p.154), he states: “Perhaps the definites here are actually
embedded within hidden indefinites”; another example: “Why singular ‘one’ is
compatible with a preceding determiner to a greater extent than plural ‘ones’
(p.226) is left an open question”.
 
Moreover, some of the analyses have not been sufficiently elaborated or may
allow for an alternative treatment; for example, the analysis (p.37) of ‘le’
of ‘lequel’ as a definite article. Comparative syntax with Tunisian Arabic
(TA) points to a different analysis of ‘le’. Such an analysis would treat ‘le’
in ‘lequel’ as an object clitic rather than a definite article. This makes
sense as in “(102) Lequel préfẽres-tu?”, ‘le’ refers to ‘livre’ which is the
object of the verb. This may be supported by equivalent TA constructions in
which the element ‘-hu’ that attaches to the equivalent of ‘which’ is clearly
an object clitic (and cannot be an article):

   ?anaa-hu t-khayyar?
   Which-OCL you-prefer

If this alternative analysis is correct, it would cast some doubt on
correlation (107), p.38. A second example can be found on pp.79ff., in
connection with the generalization according to which the existence of
constructions with transitive ‘need’ depends on the existence of a transitive
verb of possession corresponding to ‘have’: Arabic, like Russian (cf. e.g.
Kaplan, 2017 based on Freeze, 1992) expresses possession, not with ‘have’, but
with the combination of ‘be’ and a preposional phrase with a nominative (NOM)
complement (the copula in Arabic may or may not be syntactically expressed
depending on factors such as tense (Sarage, J. 2014;  Camilleri, M., & Sadler,
L. (2019); example:

   (Kaanat) l-ii ?ukht-un
  Was.3FEM.SG to-me sister-NOM
  ‘I had a sister’

If the generalization above is intended to apply to all languages, it is
unclear how the analysis can extend to Arabic which lacks the equivalent of
possession ‘have’ but has, nonetheless, transitive ‘need’, namely, ‎aHtaaj’,
as in:

   yaHtaaju kitaab-an
   need.3MSC.SG. book-ACC

A third example concerns generalization (15) (p.91) to the effect that “[a]ll
languages that have a transitive verb corresponding to ‘need’ are languages
that have an accusative-case-assigning verb of possession”. The situation of
Arabic, again, is different from that of Finnish which has an accusative
possessee, thereby accounting for the ‘apparent’ transitive ‘need’. Arabic
possessee (P), on the other hand, is NOM as shown by:

   (Kaana)-lii kitaab-un
   Was.3MSC.SG-to me book-NOM

Which makes generalization (15) somewhat dubious. 

Certain generalisations have the flavour of stipulations: the generalization
on page 332 to the effect that “there is without exception a pronounced ‘-t’
immediately preceding a post-verbal third-person SCL as in “(26) Marie a
t-elle une voiture?” which is argued to be a licenser for postverbal SCLs, is
meant to account only for third-person SCLs. It cannot account for cases
involving non-third-person SCLs such as ‘Les enfants avons-nous le temps?’
(‘Children, have we got time?)’, or ‘Moi ai-je une voiture?’ (me, have I got a
car?’) where the SCL is case-licensed in the absence of ‘t’. The explanation
on p. 362 “that [such cases] can alternatively be analysed as left
dislocation” is, itself, speculation (see footnote 38).

Finally, very often, Kayne makes a distinction between his intuitions
regarding acceptability (his English variety) and other varieties of English.
However, there is no indication of whether his intuitions have been
corroborated and strengthened by the intuition of other speakers or by some
verification procedure.

Notwithstanding these ‘shortcomings’ which do not impact negatively on the
immense value and merits of the collection, the book has largely succeeded in
fulfilling its aims of better understanding the general character of the
language faculty with the help of the tools provided by comparative syntax.

REFERENCES

Camilleri, M., & Sadler, L. 2019. The grammaticalisation of a copula in
vernacular Arabic.             
     Glossa: a Journal of general linguistics, 4(1): 137.

Cheng, L.L.-S and R. Sybesma. 1999. Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the
structure of NP.  
     Linguistic Inquiry 30: 509-542.

Cinque, G. & R.S. Kayne. 2005. The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax.
Oxford  
     University Press.    

Freeze, R. 1992. Existentials and other locatives. Language 68(3). 553-595. 

Hale, K. and S.J. Keyser. 2002. Prolegomenon to a theory of argument
structure. Cambridge, 
     MA: MIT Press.

Harris, J. and M. Halle. 2005. Unexpected plural inflections in Spanish:
reduplication and 
     metathesis. Linguistic Inquiry 36: 195-222.

Kaplan, A. 2017. Family agreement: an investigation of possession in Moroccan
Arabic. BA. 
     Yale university.

Perlmutter, D.M. 1970. On the article in English. In M. Bieerwisch and K.E.
Heidolph (eds.), 
     Progress in linguistics, 233-248. The Hague: Mouton.

Sarage, J. 2014. The Zero Copula in Russian and Arabic Sentences as Compared
with English. 
     International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature
(IJSELL) Volume 2,   
     Issue 11, November 2014, PP 119-126


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Ferid Chekili is Professor of English and Linguistics, currently employed by
the MBMA Academy for Diplomatic Studies, MOFA Bahrain. His research interests
include syntactic theory, the syntax/morphology/information structure
interfaces, generative second language acquisition and language and diplomacy.





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